Sacraments

The Sacraments are visible signs of God’s grace in our lives. God wants to share his love and mercy with us in a way that we can experience physically, not just spiritual. So God comes to us through these holy Sacraments not just to engage our hearts, our minds, and our souls, but also our physical senses. We
see the beauty of a Marriage ceremony; we feel the cleansing waters of Baptism; we smell the aroma of the chrism oil at Confirmation; We  taste the bread which conceals Christ in the Eucharist; We  hear the words of absolution during Reconciliation. 

The Sacraments have both a visible and invisible reality – a reality that engages all the human senses but is only fully understood with faith. When parents hug their children, for example, the visible reality we see is the hug. The invisible reality the hug conveys is love. We cannot "see" the love the hug expresses, though sometimes we can see its nurturing effect in the child. It is the same with God's grace in us. 

Through the Sacraments, God shares his grace and holiness with us so that we, in turn, can make the world holier.